Treats for the palate and eye.

What I’ve been reading, № 7

To be honest, I’ve been too busy reading, grading, eating tacos, and obsessing over Tom Hiddleston(specifically in Crimson Peak) to do much of anything for fun, much less do anything around here in blog-land. I HAVE been cooking enchiladas and freezing tomato sauce and making pies, but haven’t been writing about it. The other thing I HAVE been doing is reading. As you know, more than half of my reading is for work and that’s largely been a repeat of this post this semester. But here are a few new additions and a few fun reading suggestions. Also, here’s my Amazon wish list if you’re curious about what’s coming and what I want (Christmas is coming, after all.)

This book is the height of creepy, but is also so beautifully written that you get hooked on the words and just want more and more and more. For German readers, this is an excellent time to brush up on some fairly arcane vocabulary. For English readers, ditto. I love the catalogue of strange olfactory words and the idea that a whole book is devoted to the sense most frequently neglected by literature makes me really happy. Go and read it, but don’t rush it. This one should be savored.

An early human thriller. Robinson takes us out of the future we’ve come to expect from him and plunges us deep into the past to explore the meaning of humanity, our relationships with our environment, and the other-than-human inhabitants of it, love, sex, and family. It’s a beautiful read, but more meditative than some of his other books. It’s tied to the seasons and feels as if you experience each day of the years in the book, in both a really really good way and a less good one. Not a page turner throughout, but really, really powerful.

Similar in pace to Shaman. I loved this book, but I think it could have been shorter. It’s an excellent way into the mindset of radical environmental activism, without painting it too positively. It’s very possible to simultaneously hate and root for crazy, mad Hayduke and all of the others. (Also, I challenge you not to picture him as a young Hunter S. Thompson, possibly played by Johnny Depp – or as Zeke Brenner.) Also a lovely ode to the canyonlands of the American Southwest and strangely reminiscent of a picaresque novel.

Not light or fluffy, but strangely satisfying. This isn’t the first time I’ve read it. Rather I revisited it while teaching “Das Mädchen mit der Eidechse” in a class this semester. I didn’t love Der Vorleser (The Reader) in the way that many others did, but I think that Schlink writes a mean short story. These grapple with German history and its effect on contemporary life and love, sometimes in really ponderous intimate portraits of (generally pretty dysfunctional) relationships and sometimes with the feel of a Krimi.

All about paranoia and the surveillance culture in East Germany. This is a first-person stream of consciousness narrative that makes you feel like you’re being watched and like you want to watch back. Not the easiest read, but well worth the effort.